Sent to school that uses electric shocks, Mass. woman runs for office to protect others (2025)

In hopes of getting the help she needed, a Massachusetts woman was sent to the Judge Rotenberg Center — known for using electric shock devices — to finish high school.

Instead, Krista Cormier left traumatized and still unable to handle her emotions.

Now, 25 years later, she has pulled nomination papers with the intention of running for school committee in Fall River to keep others from being sent there, too.

The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), a special needs day and residential facility in Canton, has become known across the country for using electric shock devices, which are attached to the residents at all times, on people demonstrating self-injurious or aggressive behavior.

It is the only facility in the country to use them and has been the center of many advocates’ concerns for decades.

The JRC has said the device is “lifesaving” and that it is important it “remains available to those for whom all other treatment options have been tried and failed,” the JRC and the JRC Parents Association wrote in a statement after a 2023 court ruling that allowed the devices to continue to be used.

The facility has said that its clients have had behaviors that result in “profound physical injuries including blindness and mutilation” prior to using the devices. They have also injured family members and loved ones.

“Under the care of JRC’s highly specialized medical team, individuals whose lives have been marked by over-medication, physical and mechanical restraint, and social isolation can learn to live with others in homes, be gainfully employed, and safely live in the community,” a statement read.

As of 2024, there were more than 300 people who attend or live at JRC, and about 55 people were approved for the devices.

Cormier, who was later diagnosed with autism, wasn’t on the electric shock devices but, while living there from 1998 to 2000, she saw other students who were. Even that had lasting effects on her.

“It’s like being a Vietnam vet watching someone out in the field get hurt,” she said.

Prior to being at JRC, Cormier said she was on too many different medications and the idea of being able to get off of them sounded great.

However, after going unmedicated, she began having symptoms of bipolar disorder, something that wasn’t addressed at JRC.

“My first, like, manic psychotic episode was seen as a behavioral episode and that lasted for months,” she said.

While at JRC, they used a mechanical restraint chair to attempt to control her behaviors, she said. They told her parents that the chair would only be used for aggression, self-injurious behavior or property destruction.

She said in reality, that looked like getting in trouble for swearing whether it was while punching someone or just after stubbing her toe. It was also used when she said no to homework or doing chores — a common teenage behavior.

Plus, Cormier said, she never actually learned how to address all her feelings.

“I walked out here like a pressure cooker, not knowing how to handle my feelings,“ she told MassLive. ”They didn’t teach you how to handle anxiety, anger, anything. They just want you to be a robot.”

It also took her years to address lingering affects of the school — such as not being able to say no.

“It carried over to my work life. Years later, I just took on too much because I just figured if I’m saying no, I’m being a bad person,” she said.

She recently learned the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) has been paying millions to send children with autism to live at JRC, including at least one student from Fall River.

DCF said its contract with the facility “expressly prohibits” the use of the devices on its children or other “aversive treatment.” And the facility told Boston25 that the “children do not live in residences or share classrooms with those who are authorized to receive the treatment.”

Still, it’s a red flag for Cormier and other advocates.

“I don’t believe that we can, in good conscience, fund a placement like that regardless of what DCF proposed,” Sara Rodrigues, then a Fall River School Committee member, said during a 2022 discussion about the placement, The Herald News reported. “Our student is still witnessing the torture of other students in this placement.”

At the time, the committee voted 4-3 to pay for the contract. Kevin Aguiar, Bobby Bailey and Sara Rodrigues voted no and Mayor Paul Coogan, Kevin Hart, Mimi Larrivee, and Shelli Pereira voted yes, the newspaper wrote.

In 2023, the annual tuition was about $198,000. It increased in 2024 to $242,521.36 with an added one-to-one para. The cost is shared by DCF.

Officials on the committee have been told they have to abide by what DCF suggests for a placement, according to a Fall River School Committee meeting on Nov. 18, 2024.

“We have made it very well known to DCF this is not a placement Fall River would like our students to go if at all possible,” said Lori Obenchain, Fall River’s assistant superintendent of special education.

But, Obenchain said, students like the one being sent to JRC have been waiting for placements for months that can handle their needs and there are very few options.

“This is the only place that will be able to meet their needs,” Obenchain said.

Committee member Pereira claims the student at JRC is “thriving.”

“Let me remind you that we at Fall River could not provide them the services they needed unfortunately. Their needs are so wide and we don’t have the ability to provide those children what they need,” Pereira said during the November meeting.

The decision was regarding whether to continue funding the child’s tuition at JRC.

Pereira added that the concerns of the electric shock devices aren’t valid because they aren’t being used on the student. Still, she said this isn’t what she’d choose for her own children.

Plus, she said, it’s not her job to tell DCF what is right for that student.

Collin Dias disagrees.

“This school committee, I believe, has an obligation to stick up what’s right,” he said.

He added that he wants to go on the record saying that the school committee condemns the use of the electric shock devices, which, he said, have been misused by the school.

“I do have concerns about sending our students to that organization,” Dias said.

Cormier said she has extra concerns about a student also involved with DCF going to JRC. She said they likely already have trauma associated with why they’re placed with DCF.

“And now you’re going to throw them in here,” she said, adding that she’s worried they’re witnessing the same verbal and mental abuse that she went through.

Another Fall River student was placed at JRC last year. However, it was fully funded by DCF.

“The bottom line is people are there because it’s the last place for them to go,” Pereira said.

The school committee voted to once again approve the contract.

Advocates have previously called for Massachusetts to work with patients and their caregivers to find community-based options outside of JRC.

“They should be finding people places in the community where they can live independently,” disability justice attorney Shain Neumeier told MassLive in July 2020. “Where they can get past this and receive services with their families and friends.”

On Wednesday, Cormier stood outside JRC holding a sign. She called for change for everyone inside the building, but especially for students from her city of Fall River.

“Defund the JRC,” the sign read. “And DCF SHAME ON YOU.”